10 Things I Miss Most About ‘Lost’
Know how sometimes you wish you could go back and re-watch your favorite show from the beginning for the first time? That’s how I feel about Lost. I wish I could go back to the first time I saw the pilot, and then re-watch everything from there as a brand new viewer. Anytime someone even makes the slightest allusion to something that sort of happened on Lost, I perk right up and it’s impossible to get me out of the Lost hole I’ve fallen into.
And if there’s any day to fall into a Lost hole it’s today, because the show is celebrating its tenth birthday. Yes, ten years ago on this very day, the most expensive pilot ever shot for television at the time premiered on ABC. It’s staggering to think that this show has been a part of my life for ten years, and I know I’m talking about it as if it were a best friend, but it kind of is. Lost has played such a huge role in my life, and I imagine that it’s impacted others, too.
So, in honor of your birthday, Lost, here are my ten favorite things about you. (I’d do 108 things I love most, but come on, I can only list “You All Everybody” so many times.)
1. The Showrunners, Damon & Carlton
Lost premiered before the era of showrunners really took off in television, so you might even call these two the beginning of that period. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, became celebrities in their own right through countless podcasts, interviews, and eventually, Twitter. They loved interacting with fans just as much as we loved trying to pry spoilers out of them. (I miss you, Damon. Come back to Twitter, please?)
2. “The Constant”
This is hands down the best episode of the entire series. It’s a love story! It’s about time travel! Then when you’ve stopped crying and composed yourself the episode ends on such an insane note, it leaves viewers trying to figure out how all these seemingly random pieces fit together, but they do. I don’t want someone to tell me that they love me, I want someone to tell me that I’m their constant.
3. Benjamin Linus
Spoiler alert, Future Husband: our first born son will be named Benjamin Linus and that topic is NOT up for discussion. He was the big baddie for a while, but we could see why he had turned out that way: he was constantly abandoned throughout his life, yet still yearned to believe in a greater cause, and he truly believed in the power of the island. One second he was plotting destruction for everyone, the next he was genuinely trying to help the castaways. Regardless, he always had the best lines of the entire show, and he delivered them in such a hauntingly creepy way they stayed with you long after episode’s end.
4. The Supporting Cast of Characters
At some point there was a vote, and it was unanimously decided that Rose and Bernard were two of the best characters on the show, and they weren’t even part of the main cast! Lost had its core group of castaways, but then it had all of these other supporting characters, and every now and then we got to see a little bit about their lives. Rose and Bernard were there from the very beginning, and stayed till the very end. Even when they weren’t featured in an episode, I always wondered, “Hey, I wonder what those two are up to, and if they’re happy?” Out of everyone on the show, they deserved a happy ending.
5. Everything About The Hatch
That moment where John Locke is banging on the hatch door, begging for something to happen because he believes something can happen, when suddenly there’s a bright light from within? That’s not a metaphor. This hatch had someone inside of it. Mind = blown. The hatch was the most insane plot device the show introduced, if only because it opened up a thousand other proverbial hatches for us to wonder about.
6. Michael Giacchino’s Beautiful Score
Just like I have a favorite band, I also have a favorite composer, and it’s Michael Giacchino. He scored all six seasons of Lost and he managed to turn background music into a brand new character on the show. On top of that, all of the sounds composed had the most amusing titles: World’s Worst Beach Party, Locke’d Out Again, Shannonigans, Leggo My Eko, Sawyer Jones and the Temple of Boom, and I could go on but you get the idea. Giacchino hasn’t just scored Lost, though, he’s also done Pixar movies (Ratatouille, The Incredibles and UP), along with Star Trek. I could listen to his instrumentals for hours.
7. The Silly Jokes
Lost was actually kinda funny sometimes. I’m serious. Everything Hurley ever said was pure gold, even when he wasn’t necessarily trying to be funny (remember when he tried to write The Empire Strikes Back? Also, that episode was called, “Some Like It Hoth” which is, simply, hilarious.). For such a heavy show, it offered those occasional moments of lightheartedness we all craved. The castaways at one point set up a golf course. Then there’s the time they hot wire that rogue VW van. Plus, even though he was never trying to be funny, Sawyer managed to tell a lot of jokes.
8.The Insane Mythology
Lost really loved to play with our minds in really insane ways. One tiny little thing from an episode in season two suddenly had a huge impact in season three, and everyone was connected together in some way or another. Plus, a ton of characters were named for people: John Locke was a real philosopher, so was Danielle Rosseau — named for the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Remember the guy who crashed on the island in a hot air balloon? His name was Henry Gale—just like the character in The Wizard of Oz..
9. The Fans
Do a quick internet search of anything relating to Lost, and you’re bombarded with a ton of pictures, videos and fan art. Lost was prime for mockery, but we all loved it (and so did Damon and Carlton.). As you’ve probably gathered, I really really love Lost, but one of my favorite things was the people who were so frustrated with the show. Trust me, I understand.
10. THE END
I know Lost fans are greatly divided about the finale. Yes, I’m aware we still don’t know who was shooting from the other outrigger, but that’s not what the show was about. Lost was about the people on the island; it was a show about the human condition. It was a show about these people, these characters that we had come to love over the course of six seasons, and it was about their lives. While the finale wasn’t perfect, I thought it was genuinely satisfying because it gave me everything I needed to know: regardless, everyone was going to be OK.
OK, so maybe it also brought us deep into the afterlife to show us some aspect of that realm, which I won’t even try to figure out, but it did give us the core principle of the series. “The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people on that island. That’s why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone. You needed all of them, and they needed you.” Excuse me while I go cry a little bit.
(Images via here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.)
